coLAB Arts Studios at 6 Kirkpatrick St., New Brunswick, NJ presents, “Resonance,” a solo exhibition by interdisciplinary artist, Chanika Svetvilas, a current Art City Public artist-in-residence. The exhibition is on view until May 28, 2026. Gallery hours are Friday: 1pm -4pm and Saturday 12 -4pm or by appointment and private tours are available.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Through her art, Chanika Svetvilas refuses to stop at awareness. She presses for action: demanding equitable access to mental healthcare, challenging systems that exclude, and calling for environments where support is not temporary, but sustained. She creates to spark dialogue that leads somewhere real: prevention, inclusion, and care that reaches everyone.
Through a series of charcoal-text drawings on lined paper, her experiences in the mental healthcare system are revealed as pithy synopses and smeared with fingerprints and resist a sterile and clinical perspective. Materials such as charcoal and prescription bottles, a part of her lived mental health difference, informs her work.
The site of this solo exhibition was previously a school and center for the Emanuel Lutheran Church’s community development program, which included Open Door, a drug treatment program. Many community groups met here for the wellbeing of their members. In keeping with the history of the space, “Resonance,” incorporates the learning atmosphere of a classroom including writing on a chalkboard, a clock installed on the wall, and a large globe transformed with prescription bottles. The centerpiece of the exhibition is a suspended sculpture of a cage with a brightly lit, red exit sign enclosed within and sitting on a cushion of preserved moss. Encircling it below, prescription bottles cascade with gold chains and a flower garland. Upon closer inspection, strung together are cameo portraits of individuals who have been killed by the police as a result of 911 calls made by family members. The exhibition also features an experimental video, “Silent Screaming Siren,” with themes of transformation, incarceration, displacement, agency, and hope.
Chanika Svetvilas is an interdisciplinary artist based in Princeton Junction, New Jersey. Her practice is conceptually driven, spanning drawing, sculpture, video, installation, performative actions, and mixed media. She centers mental health and disability justice, creating work that challenges stigma, amplifies lived experience, and reimagines care and access.
This exhibition is a part of the inaugural Art City Public Art Residency that includes eight artists. Each one presents a solo exhibition and includes open studios of the cohort. For more information, contact coLAB Arts at jeff@colab-arts.org.